AI IN CIVIL AVIATION

Introduction Aviation has always been technology intensive due to the stringent requirements that go into keeping a heavier than air machine aloft; military aviation has been impelled by the need to dominate the medium of air and to deny it to the enemy’s war making potential while business imperatives have led to the leveraging of technology to stay ahead of competition and to maximize profits. Some emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are contributing significantly to almost every facet of aerospace and aviation. This article looks at, in civil aviation context, the use of AI one of whose definitions is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

- Gp Capt AK Sachdev

Airlines

A crucial and continual task for an airline is to manage its network of cockpit and cabin crew for daily rostering to match the flying programme with the availability of crew after taking into account their certifications, qualifications, leave, training, medical examinations, refresher courses and most importantly their Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) and Flight Time Limitations (FTL). While automation has been introduced in almost every airline in the form of rostering softwares, the introduction of AI is helping airlines do it more efficiently and with least glitches. This becomes especially crucial for management of disruption caused by either an aircraft going unserviceable out of its main base or due to crew falling sick or becoming unavailable due to other reasons before commencing the day’s routine or halfway through it.

To help in managing departures from Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow airport British Airways has introduced AI by deploying Advance Neural Networks using a network of cameras set up around the aircraft stands which compare live video streams of the complex turn round process and compare it with the planned schedule. If any issue is detected that threatens to delay or disrupt an aircraft departure, an alert is sent to the manager who is in charge and who can do something to mend the situation pro actively.